Im so fucking angry at this complete waste of money Literally setting on fire millions of dollars to then burn our planet more 🙃🙃🙃

So much dumb. What the heck... ? www.stuff.co.nz/story/360925...

Business confidence: AoNZ specific basics "It is an ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three. 'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?" - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Because this topic is a bit of an albatross around my neck. 1/14

That was probably me- I did a bunch of analysis in 2019 that business confidence for NZ was least correlated to their economy in all the world, matched party in power & PM gender and length of office, and we would all be better just looking at other countries confidence.

Good Morning and welcome to another episode of regime change by the USA. The US seems to be militarily trying to get rid of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro right now. There are reports of US ground forces in action. However, watch the Cubans too. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

Always and forever

2026 looks to be a blowout year for Auckland transit projects ... opening of the CRL, Drury/Paerata rail stations, Westgate bus station, first stages of the Wellesley St bus interchange and Victoria St upgrades, more LXRP work, and finished rollout of new CATTR frequent lines

Robert of Gloucester writing 200 years after the Norman conquest of England (modern translation). Interesting to consider given the current govs aversion to te reo Māori.

1. Tool 2. Nine Inch Nails 3. Sonic Youth 4. The Mint Chicks 5. The Dirtbombs

This is great chat on the proposed zoning changes in akl. Surprisingly the comments aren’t overly hostile, compared to what I usually see on the nzherald website. youtu.be/5ELqvbX6ZEg?...

MA put in a 4% millionaires tax 2 years ago, & the GOP said we'd miss revenue targets & millionaires would flee. MA collected TWICE the projected revenues, & the number of millionaires went UP 40%. www.wbur.org/news/2025/04...

It's been a while since I made pretty pictures of the contributions that different prices make to overall CPI measured inflation. I have focused on the non-tradable ('domestic') contributors in this graph and bundled all of the tradable ('imported') components together into the grey bars. [🧵 1/n]

We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers. The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.

Lol, absolutely nothing like the early 90s! Although I have seen quite a few young people wearing flared jeans.

Excellent summary of the privileges committee/haka situation. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic... Impeccably factual, and accurately describes some of Judith Collins' justification for the scale of the penalty as an "untruth".

Elon Musk’s DOGE is tearing through the US government with disastrous consequences. But beyond its borders, the extreme right is gearing up to push their own DOGE-inspired austerity campaigns in countries around the world.

The Dickin Medal is the highest award that can be issued to animals in British military service. Bearing the words "We Also Serve" it has been awarded 75 times since its creation in 1943. Only one cat has ever received the award. This is the story of Able Seacat Simon, of HMS Amethyst. 🧵 1/25

It looks more like this: five homes replacing one or two.

BREAKING: “The single most comprehensive rezoning in the United States.” Cambridge Mass. Council just voted overwhelmingly to allow 6-storey multi-family housing city-wide. “Paris-style.” Congratulations.

On a tackling myths theme... How many times have you heard this explanation of our current economic position? Bloody Govt spent big, this caused inflation, so RBNZ had to go full 'shock and Orr'... and now we have to have a recession 😢 Every single link in this causal chain is weak af... [🧵1/n]

Innovative high-value NZ business forced overseas

Goldman Sachs, Jan 21: "Despite Trump’s comments that the 25% tariff will be implemented in 10 days, we continue to believe the odds of a 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico are low (20%)." Why have analysts been caught so flat-footed by Trump doing *exactly what he said he would*?

The prime minister says New Zealand has a culture of saying no to growth. When it comes to housing, he's part of the problem. thespinoff.co.nz/politics/28-...

Make sure you stay in the AI good books. No doubt they keep records.

Amazing sunset tonight. Me old samsung doesn't do it justice.

Lake Rd will be a challenge but this sounds pretty cool. www.nzherald.co.nz/business/dev... Devonport $400m intensification plan fast-track application: New apartments, shops, offices

Spring St. Living up to its name.

A few questions on the balance sheet stats I shared. I'll try a quick crash course 🧵 Start with an easy one... bank account balances and physical currency. The money in your bank account is your 'asset'. OK ✅ But your bank account balance is your bank's 'liability' (debt) - they owe it to you [1/n]

Treasury concerned by NZ government's official transport plans having "$120 billion in forecast investments versus only $55-60b in revenue." (paywalled)

Post a pic you took to add some calm to the timeline.

Remember when "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" tried to teach us about tariffs and no one was paying attention

"made my way down Queen St, watched as cars thinned out and soon it was almost lots & lots of pedestrians, cyclists, skateboarders and e-scooters zooming by in their designated lanes and I thought, “wow, a real city” Bads news for grinches, Auckland is growing up. thespinoff.co.nz/business/26-...

Anytime you hear about a nz public service not working within its budget... Just refer to this chart to see where all the tax is being spent. 🤯

Goddamn spicy 🔥

The end is nigh for ye olde Trident.

Nice!

Need some proper bus priority in town... we ain't moving.

Nice one @patrickreynolds.bsky.social www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/downtown-...

Reflecting on the NZ election... I had resigned myself to a National led coalition, but hoped the left would have done better. That said, I am enjoying the Greens and TPM, and Act, taking electorate seats off National and Labour. Long may it continue. Both major parties have been complacent.

This guy on country calendar for PM.